Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The not happy side of Care Giving.

I had an interesting talk with my stepdaugher...oh hell, let's just say she is my daughter. For all the help and support I've gotten over the years she is as close to a biological child as I could get.Sometimes I wonder how I'd get through things without her. I know I can call her and blow steam off.Last night we discussed how dramatically different Rich will be with her or the nurses and staff at the UW and at the VA.He charms their pants off. Smiles, agrees to what they tell him, jokes around and stops to talk at length with other veterans. All in all what I see in public is a well rounded happy person who is dealing with cancer of the throat.Suddenly the tables turn when we walk in the door. He becomes angry, frustrated, and will lash out if I ask him if he is going to 'flush' his PEG tube. He seems to get confused and can't recall what the doctors told him and WHY they told him these things.I pull out the handy voice recorder and offer to play it back for him and he gets angry again. He tells me I'm a nag. He makes a 'face' at me and gives me the look.Finally he just tells me to ...just leave him alone.I try to let things just roll off my back and try to remind myself that these are just words and that he is the one with the illness.And then there it is, the little nag in the back of my brain that is mean. I want to lash out and tell him off. Let him have some of his own medicine.Make your own bed, make your own meals, take care of chores, bills, if you know so dang much do it yourself. If I can't do anything the right way then fine,...I quit.But no, I don't do that. Somewhere there is an end and treatment will be done and there will be a road to recovery.I always believe in hope even when it is difficult.I hope.